politics

Dictatorship USA – Part 5

Learning The Truth About Real US “Democracy” — The Sham “Communist Party USA”

I was a member of the so-called “Communist Party USA” from 1967 to 1977. I joined the CP because I had been convinced from a rather early age that socialism was far superior to capitalism. When I joined I was completely naive about what the “Communist Party USA” really was, and there was no one to guide me.

For most of the time of my “Party” membership, I was a full-time political organizer, mostly for the “Party” itself. I was the main organizer for the “Party” in two important regions — Ohio and then Southern California — and a member of the “Central Committee” from the fall of 1969 to the middle of 1977.

I attended numerous, numerous meetings at all levels and personally knew all the “Party’s national leaders and virtually all of the state or district leaders as well. I knew all of the “Party” members in New England (where I first joined the “Party”), in Ohio and Southern California (of course). I came into sufficient contact to know many or most of the “Communist Party” members in New York, Illinois, Indiana, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Northern California and in other regions.

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When I was a member, the “Communist Party USA” had about 2,000 – 3,000 members nationwide, although the “Party” “leaders” claimed about ten times that number. It published a daily (5 times weekly) newspaper, the Daily World, plus a weekly west-coast newspaper, the Peoples’ World. “Political Affairs” was the “Party’s” monthly “theoretical journal.” The “Party” ran a youth organization, the “Young Workers’ Liberation League” and had its hands in various enterprises, including travel bureaus to the socialist countries.

The yearly budget of the “Party” ran into the several millions of dollars. When I was in the “Party,” there were up to or more than 200 people – including “journalists” and people in subsidiary organizations — who were on the “Party” payroll. They all lived well, and showed no signs of financial or other hardship.

2,000 to 3,000 “Party” members is, of course, a very small percentage of the US population. But is would be a highly significant number – if composed of genuine revolutionaries. 200 or so full-time political organizers is by no means a trivial number. If one excludes election campaigns, how many full-time organizers are there in the two predominant US parties – Republican and Democrat?

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Yet this substantial apparent political force in the US did nothing of any political significance. Certainly nothing “revolutionary” or “communist!” If one writes a detailed and verbose history of the United States and the country’s internal and external politics during the period 1967-1977, you will not be obliged to mention the “Communist Party USA.”

The one apparent noteworthy exception in the entire period when I was active was the “Free Angela Davis” campaign. The campaign reached somewhat beyond the US, mostly in the socialist countries, but it had no impact on enhancing the effect of the CP. Davis was and still is a FBI-stooge, who helped organize a murderous provocation aimed at discrediting Black liberation activists in the US. She was eventually acquitted and became a university professor and phony spokesperson for prisoners. In the 2016 US presidential campaign, this “revolutionary” (!) publicly supported arch-reactionary, warmonger and big-time thief Hillary Clinton.

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With this one more apparent than real exception, the entire “Communist Party USA” was unable to organize mass struggle anywhere on anything. Not anywhere. Not on any issue.

In Ohio in 1970 I organized what turned out to be the most significant workers’ movement against the Vietnam war (see “Silent Terror,” p. 124-5), but the “Party” was virtually nowhere to be found. A couple of members were instructed to give token, insincere help while the rest of the “Party” leadership engaged in diversionary tactics attempting to stifle the movement. A similar situation occurred later in Los Angeles, when I took the lead in trying to build a movement against unemployment and poverty.

What were all the “revolutionary” “Party” members and full-time organizers doing? Having meetings after meetings, and meetings about meetings. Engaging in “fund drives” for the “Party” newspapers and occasionally fielding candidates to run for one or another public office. Attempts to build genuine mass struggle against poverty, racism and war were absent.

Eventually it became evident that the “Communist Party USA” was a completely sham organization, run by the vast US lie, spy, criminal, provocation, subversion and regime change, terror, drug-runnning, torture, war and mass murder apparatus. What is also important to note is that the FBI spent several millions of dollars yearly to sponsor this charade.

When I found it impossible to identify even a single honest communist in the Party, I left. It can be argued that I personally did not know every last member of the “Communist Party USA,” but that is hardly significant. If there were an honest communist or two or a few somewhere in the US (unlikely), that would have been of no political significance. Any such individual(s) had absolutely no influence on “Party” activities or policies and would have been destroyed long ago.